Looking for data on SEN exclusions

[MinorCollision]

Does anyone know the best way to find out how many students were permanently excluded by a particular school over the past few years, and how many of the excluded individuals were known to have SEN?

I'm researching state secondaries for a child with an EHCP and although I've heard that some highly regarded local schools exclude a lot of SEN kids, I haven't been able to find any actual data.

Is similar data on detentions, suspensions, full-day isolation, etc available anywhere?

Freedom of information request to DfE or the LA?

Do you think it's a good idea to make the request directly to the school or better go through the LA?

The data you are looking for isn’t published. You could make FOI requests to the schools. However, depending on the numbers, the number of exclusions and the number of those with SEN may not be disclosed.

Down to an LA level, you can see the number and rate of permanent exclusions and suspensions here. You can break those numbers down looking at various data sets including the type of school and SEN. Doing this could help you decide if FOI requests for the data from individual schools are worth it. If, for example, your LA only had 4 PEX in 22/23 (the most recent data is from the spring term of 22/23) you are unlikely to get more detailed answers.

Just had a play and you can use the DfE tool to get suspension and exclusion data by named school.

@Proserphina I don’t think you can break the school level data down into those with SEN but no EHCP, those with SEN with EHCP or no SEN, can you?

Sorry, you are right @BrumToTheRescue, you cannot get those characteristics split below LA on the tool.

@Proserphina I thought I was missing a step somewhere. I can understand why it isn’t disclosed, but it would be interesting data, I think.

And there is an argument that in order to meet the public sector equality duty schools should have themselves reflected on that data...

@Proserphina one would hope! Sadly those schools who would benefit on reflecting on it are likely to be the ones who don’t give it much thought.

Thank you @BrumToTheRescue and @Proserphina. I'll take a look when things are quieter this evening.